learn to hit just about anything-rabbits, birds, deer. And if you build up your strength, you can even kill with it. But it won’t happen overnight.
“Do you think you can keep at it? Truly learn how to use it?”
He looked into his father’s eyes, saw the smile there, the pride, and behind it the worry. Worry for his mother, for him. Worry about Portstown and the Proprietor, about their survival here in the New World, on this new coast.
“Yes,” Colin said, his hand tightening on the sling’s knot. “Yes, I can learn it.”
And he meant it. He meant to practice until his arm ached, until he could hit anything within a hundred yards, accurately and repeatedly, standing still or moving.
And then he intended to use the sling on the Proprietor’s son.
He intended to hunt Walter down and make him pay.
2
Colin crouched down in the grass at the lip of a knoll, his head just above the waving stalks, the knot of his sling clutched in his right hand. The late summer sun beat down on the plains spread out around him, turning the grass gold. Spring had come and gone, most of summer as well. The heat had dried out the ground and the grain had ripened, the seed heads pattering lightly against Colin’s face as he stared down onto the flat land below.
Mounds of dirt pockmarked the ground in all directions, the entrances to the burrows beneath like black eyes. An occasional prairie dog poked its head up, chirruped briefly, before vanishing again. But they were relaxing, growing used to Colin’s presence. He’d arrived over an hour ago, had settled into position downwind of the burrows for the wait.
One of the prairie dogs slid out from its burrow and stood on its hind legs, nose twitching, tan fur blending into the grasses around it. It scanned the area, turning with quick shifts of its body. It chirruped, went down to all fours, and slid away from the entrance. Three more heads appeared in other burrows, surveying the area, and farther away two more slunk out of their protection into the sun. They called to each other, moving onto the plains warily, at least a third of them standing up and on guard while the rest foraged through the grasses. Clouds passed by, and in the breeze coming from the east Colin could smell a hint of coming rain. But he didn’t move. He waited, the prairie dogs edging farther and farther from their burrows. He’d learned the hard way that the little buggers were quick, that with a single chirp of warning from one of the guards all of them could vanish into safety beneath the earth in the blink of an eye.
One of the prairie dogs inched closer, picking through the grass with his nose and front feet. Colin focused in, clenched his hand around the knot of the sling. His breathing slowed as he watched. The bands of the sling tied around his forearm pressed into muscle as he raised his arm, as he began to gently twirl the stone already placed in the pouch. An overhead throw, because the distance was short.
And because he needed a killing blow.
The motion caught the prairie dog’s attention and it stilled, then lifted its head in one swift jerk. At the same instant, one of the guardians emitted a piercing chirp.
Every prairie dog in sight stood up, long bodies rigid, small front feet dangling over the soft lighter fur of their underbellies. All of them turned in his direction.
Colin swore and released the sling, cords snapping out, stone flung.
In puffs of dirt, every prairie dog vanished.
Except one.
Colin released his pent breath with a fierce whoop of triumph and wiped the sweat from his forehead, grinning so hard it hurt. Skidding down the incline, he crouched down next to the body of the prairie dog, noted the splash of blood and matted fur where the stone had struck its head. Exactly where he’d intended.
He sat back on his haunches and smiled. He’d been practicing for months, first on the beach, getting the feel for the sling, for distance, for accuracy. Blocks of driftwood served as targets, set at intervals down the sand, where they remained stationary, then thrown out into the ocean, where he could practice hitting a moving target as the wood bobbed and rocked in the waves. Hours of practice, begun as soon as his chores were finished.
His father had watched him on occasion, had come to throw with him when he could, when he wasn’t doing some menial labor in Portstown or helping someone in Lean-to. It had been his idea to send Colin and others out to the plains to hunt for rabbits and fowl and whatever else they could find in this new world that everyone had started to call New Andover. Others from Lean-to were sent down to the beaches to dig for clams or to catch the occasional large crab that had wandered up onto the sand. Still others were sent out in boats into the channel to fish.
Yet over half of those in Lean-to-mostly criminals and miscreants who’d chosen the New World over the Armory in Andover-were doing nothing except seething in discontent and squalor.
Colin had had little success at first on the plains-real animals were harder to hunt than driftwood-but now…
Now, he felt ready for his real target.
His smile twisted with anger as his eyes narrowed. His hand clenched on the cords of the sling.
A gust of air, leaden with the weight of rain, pushed against his face. Shoving the anger down, but not the anticipation, Colin closed his eyes and bowed his head, murmuring a quick prayer of thanks to Diermani for the kill, as his mother had taught him, then gathered up the limp body of the prairie dog and placed it into the satchel at his side that contained the two rabbits he’d caught that morning. Shading his eyes, he squinted up at the sun, then stood and scanned the horizon to the east.
“Time to head back,” he said to himself.
But he didn’t move.
The breeze brushed his hair back from his eyes, the scent of rain stronger now. In the distance, he could see the leading edge of the storm, white clouds at the forefront, darker clouds behind. It would arrive within the hour.
He sighed, removed his sling and stowed it in a separate pocket of the satchel, and headed back to the west, trudging up the incline where he’d waited for the prairie dogs and down the far side. The satchel bounced against his side as he moved, as he picked up his pace.
Half an hour later-the wind gusting at his back with enough force to flatten the grass around him, the clouds beginning to blot out the sun overhead-Colin came upon the outermost farms still close enough to be considered part of Portstown. He paused as he drew alongside the first. The house had yet to be completed, but the barn, twice as large as the house, had been raised the week before in the span of two days. A large tract of land had already been carved out of the grassland, freshly plowed, and if Colin shaded his eyes he could see a team of horses in the distance, digging out another stretch of field. A woman worked in the garden plot nearest the house, a basket tucked in tight to her hip. Two children rough-housed around her.
She stood as soon as she noticed Colin, glared at him, face set with hostility.
Colin spat to one side-a habit his father had picked up in the past months whenever those in Portstown were mentioned-and continued on his way.
He entered Lean-to with the first fat drops of rain pattering down from the sky. Men and women cursed and shot black looks at the clouds, then tucked pots and baskets under their arms, shielding them from the rain as they ducked into huts and tents, flaps falling closed behind them. One woman bellowed, “Come here you little terrors!” and rounded up the last of her four children, ushering them into a shack made from pieces of discarded boat hulls and driftwood.
Colin ducked into his parents’ hut to the first grumble of thunder. He squatted and pulled a shutter of wood over the front of the opening before letting the blanket drop, then turned.
And halted. His parents had guests.
“They’ve shut us out completely!” Paul spat, then took a pull from an aleskin. He shoved it at Sam, who wiped the mouthpiece on his shirt before taking his own pull.
“What is he talking about, Sam?” Colin’s mother asked in disgust, motioning Colin toward her where she worked near the fire, taking his satchel.
